Painting our Lives in Wonder
by Silvern Haze
Summary: All Human. Jacob was always best in fixing things, wasn't he? The girl herself doesn't think she needs fixing. What once is gone is gone forever and can't be replaced, right? Maybe some people do care, despite her beliefs. Isn't life a mess? Jacob/OC
1. Rain Puddles

_"Rain Puddles"_

_Prologue_

_55 minutes and forty, forty-two, forty-five, forty-six… seconds._

I had never imagined it to be like this. I had never, not in all of my 23 years, felt so utterly helpless and detached.

_56 minutes and six, seven, eight…_

I didn't ask myself why, or even how. This was unimaginable, even after it had happened. The door, that third on the corridor, was a little ajar. Behind it, it was dark, terrifyingly so.

_57 minutes and one, two, three…  
_

He was gone. Outside the window there was a downpour, cars drove through deep puddles and splashed their content onto the sidewalk. Seattle had never been darker.

_57 minutes and fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four…  
_

The television had faded into the background, the saddened news anchors' voices molding into a far-away hum. They had already said enough.

_58 minutes and thirty-seven, thirty-eight, thirty-nine…  
_

The clock ticked loudly in the kitchen. I felt dirty and betrayed.

_59 minutes and fifty-eight, fifty-nine, one hour.  
_

He had paid for what he did but I was the one who lost this game.


	2. Cracks in the Glass

_Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in the Twilight Series._

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* * *

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**Painting Our Lives In Wonder**

_Chapter One_

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* * *

  
**

_On a Thursday many years ago I found out what it meant to lose a life, on an irrelevant Monday many months later I learnt how it felt to arise from the dead. If only the time in between had been this disturbingly easy._

"Damn it," I whispered softly. I was facing the headboard of my bed as I sat there, numb. _Nothing. _My constant breathing and my heart beating regularly in my chest were the only things that made me feel alive. Because, if it weren't for the evidence that I was still under the living, I would have just about buried myself. I would almost say that this was getting out of line, but it was ridiculous. This had gotten out of line long time ago.

I let my hand brush against the sore skin of my knee, ripped by the rough fabric of the tear-darkened carpet, letting out a shaky breath. There was nothing, there was no pain. There wasn't anything at all. I rolled over to the side and rested my head against the mattress, thought of the black butterflies that had starred in my dreams last night. I didn't have nightmares anymore. It were, a little to my dismay, just dreams. Senseless, purple-black dreams full of walls, oceans and lush meadows. I wanted my nightmares back, I decided. I wanted to feel something, anything really, even fear or regret.

_"You should go to therapy," _Liz would say every morning I walked into the office. I never listened for the thought of a shrink being able to make me snap out of this was plain hilarious. I never laughed.

I reached for the top drawer of my dresser, pulled it out and grabbed my colors and brushes, nudged the drawer closed again. My fingers played with the soft tip of my favorite, the brush my mother had gotten me for my fourteenth birthday. I hadn't painted anything in a long, long time or so it seemed and wished the times back when painting was my only love, the only real commitment in my life. But I couldn't paint any longer. I just _couldn't_. My paintings had always displayed my emotions, feelings, they were like my individualized diary. But without any real emotions, without anything but numbness, I couldn't paint. Not with my favorite, not with any brushes in the world. Not even with my fingers.

I'm sure some of you would say I was pathetic. That was right, I was indeed pathetic. Knowing so just didn't get me anywhere. Yes, I could have simply said "you don't know half of it" or something like that but my pathetic-ness was so obvious even I couldn't deny it. So I let it be.

I got up every morning, made myself a chai—or bought one at Starbucks, went to work and put on a fake smile for everybody who gave me a genuine one. On weekends I would let Lizzy drag me out of my apartment to do what she called "frolicking around downtown". My life was a routine. But with Lizzy gone to spend her holidays with her long-distance boyfriend I was left to wither away all alone in the city of Seattle. Oh yes, I was pathetic.

There had to be something to do, something to fill that space. _All that empty space. _But I hadn't found anything in those long months, why would I do now? But, to be honest with myself, I didn't know if I'd really looked in the first place. Knowing me, I had not. In surprise, I let all the brushes plop down onto my bed as the phone started to ring.

Phone calls were rare these days. Normally, I would let the answering machine take the call, knowing that only those who didn't know me would waste their time with calling. My friends and colleagues knew better than to try and hope I'd answer the phone. But this time, I rolled off my queen-sized bed and got to my feet, making my way over to the mocha coffee-table my cordless phone stood on. I had no idea what made me do it. Maybe it was the tiny flicker of hope that it was Lizzy, wanting to tell me she was coming home early, or it was the urge to find my 'something'—the something that would fill up what had been left empty of anything but air.

"Hello," I spoke into the receiver, sounding raspy despite all the water I'd drunk in the morning. I waited impatiently for an answer.

"Hi, this is Amy Peterson. The one from Art Club?," a soft voice said on the other end. Amy Peterson from Art Club? I had been a member of the Art Club before it had happened. Oh well, I guessed I still was since I'd never really pulled out.

"Art Club Amy?" A small mahogany-haired girl came to my mind, her green eyes sparkling with joy while scribbling on a sheet of paper.

"Yeah, that one. I wanted to know if you'd like to come to the club room this afternoon, it'd be really nice, but if you have other plans that's okay, of course," she started rambling. Just like that she was inviting me to join their group? Why now, after six months?

"How come you ask me this after my six months of absence?" I couldn't help asking it. My gaze wandered to the third door in the corridor, the one painted a ruby red. It lingered there for a moment before I averted my eyes again, as if I was embarrassed, or just shy. The odd thing was that I was neither of those two.

"Well, most of the group has quitted and we were thinking that you were basically the only one who hadn't come and was still a member. With only four members we'd have to…" She paused for a second or two. "To close the club, you know?" I didn't like the idea, but what was I supposed to do? Sit there and watch them draw? I wasn't going to do that, I couldn't do that. I bit my lip as I drummed my fingers against the mocha-colored wood. Again, my fingertips felt strangely numb. It was getting annoying.

"Amy, I haven't painted in months," I stated, my voice monotone.

There was a pause and what sounded like a hopeless sigh.

"Oh." Again, silence. "That's… I mean, that's sad. You were so good."

"Thank you." For the first time in maybe weeks I sounded genuine. Amy Peterson cleared her throat.

"It is really none of my business, I know that, so I won't ask. But, would you please think this over again? It would be such a shame to give up a talent like yours." I noticed the conversation had made an unexpected turn. This was no longer about her pleading me to go to that meeting today. This was about _me. _I was just about to tell her "no", icily, cruelly. But I found myself not able to.

* * * *

"Why am I doing this again?," I mumbled to myself as I stalked off towards the elevator. That Amy girl had not only managed to get me to join the Art Club today but to actually paint something myself. I swore to myself not to randomly pick up the phone ever again.

I found it slightly difficult to walk in my four-inch stilettos on the carpeted floor, tried to make my struggling less obvious by swaying my hips a little. I probably looked like an utmost moron. I risked a glance behind me and was relieved it was just me, the hallway's orange walls and dark green doors. _Somewhat like an orange_, I mused.

I closed my eyes simultaneously with the elevator doors and willed myself to forget that Lizzy really wasn't here to accompany me. To me, Lizzy Richards was not only my best friend but my support, shielding walls to protect me from the cruelty of the world. One of the few things he had left, other than the thick emptiness inside of me, was the fear… No, not fear, it was some odd sense of acceptance. I knew that outside these steel elevator doors there was no one who cared for who I was, who cared for what I felt—or didn't feel, for that matter—and what happened to me, in my life. Life was short and unforgiving, there was no start-again-button to undo things, decisions. When life was this short, such a limited time span, why would anyone care? Strange, how I seemed to yearn for something, someone and at the same time didn't. I _didn't _want anyone to interfere in my daily routine—like now—and I _didn't _want the same to happen all over again. What I did want was to fill the emptiness in my soul. With anything, anything that could complete me and give me the part of me back that he had taken away and never returned. He would never be able to return it now.

The _Pling! _announced that I had reached the first floor.

I reopened my eyes and stepped out, the steady _clique claque _of my heels against the stone floor an encouraging rhythm to keep going.

* * * *

Back when I'd just started middle high, kids had been calling me the weird girl, told me my steps weren't audible on the pavement, the yellow linoleum of the school's hallways. They had whined about how that was _so_ odd and how they felt really loud and awkward next to me. I would flush, look away, find an excuse to leave. When high school started, the same comments came all over again—only that odd had become freaky and weird-o had turned to creepy. The day after graduation I had adapted to wearing heels, wore them gladly and frequently, realized the sound of my steps were soothing in their own way. My first tries were laughable and wobbly, an amusement to my classmates, but my need to wear them on a daily basis made me become steadier in a short time that were just days.

In spite of it all, I had found a liking in walking barefoot where no one could see me, in being the weird girl whose movements made no sound.

* * * *

My eyes were trained in front of me as I drove through the familiar streets of Seattle. The Art Club was located on the campus of the IADT—the International Academy of Design and Technology—the college I'd attended a few years ago. I was forced to grit my teeth as a wave of nostalgia washed over me while I drove past the old dorm rooms on my way to the parking lot. _Here it has all begun_, something inside of me whispered.

* * * *

I stood in front of the beige door which's finish had been flaking off over the years so that there were brown peeks of the old wood showing on several spots. I was staring at the messy, handwritten shield pointing out that, from 4 to 7pm and only on Saturdays, the Traditional Art Club—sponsored by the Jefferson Art Gallery Seattle, it said—was gathering here. I raised my hand to knock, eyes on the floor as I finally did so, and waited. No other than a slightly older Amy Peterson pulled open the unwelcoming door, a slightly older and more worn version of the picture my mind had spit out at the mention of her name. But still she was smiling, the corners of her plump rosé lips curling upward. She showed no teeth. I was taller than her, I noted, towered over her frame by a couple of inches. She, as well, was wearing heels.

"You came!" My head nodded, a response to her carefully adjusted enthusiasm. I didn't feel comfortable at all, as if I was presented on a plate to whoever cared to take a look.

"You look…," she started and let the sentence drift off into naïve unawareness. We both knew I didn't look good, decent, any of those things. An unidentified emotion flashed in her eyes but before I could look closer, it was gone.

"Can I come in?" The question shattered the silence into shards. Amy looked away awkwardly and darted inside. She left the door open for me and I closed it behind me as I went in after her.

Inside those four green walls—a light pastel green, as I had noticed years ago as I fist stepped into this room, for it had been and still was my favorite shade—I met gazes with two familiar and one unknown pairs of eyes. Amy Peterson had refrained from looking at me again, for whatever reason there might be. There wasn't a single boy in the room which made me curious why exactly so many members had pulled out. I kept the question to myself as I was not comfortable with being the first one to speak. The girl that belonged to the unfamiliar blue eyes cleared her throat, an attempt to wash away the awkwardness, and chose to address me.

"Name's Erin, you're Alice, right?" I nodded. "I think I speak for all of us four if I say we're thankful that you've decided to come." I attempted to curl my lips into a smile but hoped that it didn't look too much like a grimace. Erin's thank-you-speech had reminded me of the fact that I was supposed to conjure a decent picture out of a plain canvas after three long hours. Was I really able to pull that?

"It'd be a shame if the freshmen wouldn't be able to learn how to create art with their own hands instead of computers here at IADT, wouldn't it?" I was almost in awe of myself for forming an acceptable reply.

"True," the Indian-looking girl, whose name I couldn't remember to save my life, chimed in. The second brunette beside Amy, Melissa I thought it was, nodded in agreement. I walked over to the canvas and sat down on a stool next to Kelly, who I recognized easily by her blonde disarray of curls. I remembered her to be the oldest of us, her, Amy, Melissa—or rather who I assumed was Melissa— and I had already graduated from IADT. The Indian girl had to be graduating this year and the one who had introduced herself as Erin seemed a little too young but you never knew.

Kelly turned a little in her seat to face me, gave me an encouraging smile. How much had Amy told them? Or could she solely guess that I wasn't all happy-go-lucky by my appearance?

"Hey," I mumbled, at least trying to be social. She nodded and returned my greeting, then focused her attention on the unfinished drawing in front of her. The Indian girl and me were the only ones who preferred to paint.

I shuddered as I inspected the clean white linens of the canvas, supported by a scaffold. _My god, what have I gotten myself into?_

_---  
_

_Black strokes of wings, brought by a tepid summer breeze, dancing over the ashen ground. The red flowers were holding the world together, that world, with their long, steel roots buried in the moist earth. The black butterflies said thank you with every nip they took of the spicy glowing nectar that collected in the flowers' blossoms. Suddenly the question why the butterflies liked their nectar spicy and if that was the only reason the flowers produced spicy nectar was all that mattered to me. "Holy lord of the jelly fish, thank you for Tabasco sauce," I jelled into the wind._

_---  
_

Funny, how the retelling of my weird-as-hell dream let me come up with something to paint, because by the end of these three hours there was a "pretty depressing black butterfly-thingy"—as Erin had so compassionately dubbed it—on my former plain white canvas. I didn't think it was depressing, not at all actually. In my eyes it was neutral, maybe a tad mysterious but nothing beyond that. It was just a shadow of what I could have created, Amy had decided. She didn't know that, for now, it was as far as my artistic talents went. None of them knew but I didn't have the nerve to enlighten them.

Kelly next to me had drawn a really realistic-looking snow landscape, which Melissa had insisted on nailing onto the wall that was already covered in pictures. Kelly had blushed and had, shyly, told her that it wasn't that good. To no avail, of course.

* * * *

As I started to pack my things and head home, the Indian girl—who I now knew was named Binal, thanks to Amy's "Hey, Binal, do you think this looks like lace?"—asked me to join them in hell. Of course, she phrased it as an invitation to go to a bar with them. Please don't ask me why I said yes, I don't know what came over me.

Fact was that I now stood in the middle of a smoky bar, the air almost too thick to breathe and the multi-colored lights pulsing with the beat that boomed out of four gigantic speakers. It reminded me more of a disco than a bar, but whatever.

The girls had scattered over the crowded dance floor, and I chose to look for a place to hide, found none. The damp heat inside the bar added to its disadvantages as well for I feared my deodorant would fail me. All in all, this was awful.

"Hey, chick, haven't seen you 'round here before!" _And, I swear by god, you'll never see me again. _A guy had materialized in front of me. He was quite tall, reminded me of a jock and his sweaty brown hair fell into his eyes. My eyes lingered on his right hand that was holding a beer. _Nice. Not._

"My friends forced me to go," I muttered, not quite knowing why I was telling him this. I didn't think he was even listening because his gaze had settled on the mound somewhere between my neck and stomach. _What an asshole. _I almost wanted to ask him if he'd never seen breasts before. As the hand that was not holding booze moved to tuck one ash blonde piece of hair behind my ear I instinctively smacked it away and stalked off to a corner that, I hoped, screamed "I'm not looking for a one-night stand!", leaving him slightly confused. It didn't take him too long to find a willing girl. I shuddered at the thought.

I spent the next few minutes with watching Erin, who I'd spotted in the middle of the dancing crowd. She had hooked herself a guy and seemed to be pretty much in her element. Was I really that "un-fun", as Lizzy would say? I let my gaze wander again, past a hundred moving bodies, but stopped abruptly on a tall frame that stood not too far away from me, leaning against the opposite wall.

He didn't do anything, and I mean it, he didn't do any-freaking-thing but what I found in his gaze made me blink a few times, followed by a sharp intake of breath. I didn't know how I'd come up with the completely, undeniably delusional idea that _he cared_. Because he was just like everybody else in here, just like the jerks lingering in the doorway, the guys on the counter that had already had a little to much of their 'usual' and just like the players melting with girls on the dance floor, even the boyfriends taking a pause from their girls. He didn't really look, either. He gazed, directly at—but still straight through—me.

"Let me guess, _sex on legs_?" It came from behind me. Startled, I swirled around. It took me a second to grasp that _startled_ was an—unexpected—improvement to my recent condition.

"Huh?," I managed to reply dumbly. The girl sighed, nodded her head in his general direction.

"Him. You're thinking he's sex on legs." I couldn't help but turn around again to get another look of him, but my eyes found his gaze and I couldn't bring myself to look at his body, he was just his brown eyes and his brown eyes were all of him.

"So?" _I am not_, I answered in my mind but chose not to voice it, _I am merely deluding myself into believing unbelievable things._

The girl glared at me and rested her hands on her hips. "My name is Leah," she said, as if it was a reasonable proof that I was indeed thinking he was—what? Sex on legs? "I'm trying to get _him_," she lifted her hand to point with her thumb, "laid." She was what?

"You are what?" Leah rolled her eyes and refrained from answering. "Why me, do I look like a common whore to you?" I glanced down at my body, just to check.

"No, but you were staring at him." _So what_, my inner voice sneered, though, no sound left my lips. I looked over Leah's shoulder—she had navigated to block my view of him sometime in the last few seconds—and into brown eyes, he was still staring into space.

"What's up with him, anyway?" Leah's frown deepened.

"He's being an ass. My mission is getting him out of his bubble."

"Bubble," I breathed. Even if nobody noticed, I was sure everyone did anyway, I was in a "bubble" as well. Suddenly I wanted to know why he was in this bubble, what it was like _inside of_ his bubble but I didn't dare to ask, I even felt guilty for wondering. Rewarding caring with caring, maybe? Only until later I would notice that guilt was an emotion, that I was making progress. But in that moment it all fit perfectly into a picture, despite all the cracks in the glass.

* * *

_Yes, her name is Alice. She is in no way related to Alice Cullen, though. _

_Kora_


End file.
